


Sleepless

by SegaBarrett



Category: True Detective
Genre: Drug Use, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:28:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8312233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Rust gets in deep cover with Ginger.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own True Detective, and I make no money from this.

There’s a reason why they call it deep cover. 

Because when you’re in it, it’s like you’re drowning, except you can never-never come up for air.

He’d been called Rust once upon a time. Now, that name seemed like some kind of whisper from a dream he could only slightly remember, the kind he tried to shake out of his head in the morning and always failed.

Today, he walked along, trying to figure out how he would make it work today. What would he do? What thing would he add to the list that he was printing across his brain? 

He would become Crash – or always be Crash, or always be someone else. A cracked mirror, maybe – was that how it worked? Another image, forever fading into dust.

And today he would go see Ginger again.

***

There was something almost Viking-esque about the man, with his big twisted beard, pitch black tattoos and fierce eyes.

Rust – or Crash, now it was always Crash, even in his head – was almost afraid of him sometimes, even though he tried not to be (after all, what was the point of being afraid of the inevitable? It only served to be afraid if you had a choice). 

Right now, he couldn’t look into Ginger’s eyes, and that scared him more.

Not that the man had hurt him; not yet, at least. But with every touch against his spine, Rust knew it was a possibility, as easy as stepping on a leaf in the forest. 

Thankfully, Ginger seemed to like him. He was a man of few words, so Rust had to take it from his manner, from the way he was gentle when he put his hands on Rust’s sides, the way he held him down but made sure he didn’t hurt his ribs or back. Rust didn’t know what to make of it. 

He was biting at Rust’s neck, and Rust shivered, long and in frantic bursts like he was in thirty-degree weather.

This room wasn’t cold, though – it was blistering hot, and Rust was sure that he was sweating and just as sure that he couldn’t stop it if he tried. Maybe it was the coke he’d shoved up his nose, or maybe he’d come here without it this time. Maybe his brain stayed in that mode even when it wasn’t switched on; maybe he didn’t even need the shit anymore.

He wanted to say something, wanted to speak, but couldn’t find any words.

That was fine – Rust and Crash didn’t share much, but they both had a tendency to lapse into silence when the moment called for it. And this was a string of many moments.   
He shut his eyes and let out a moan, low and deep. It almost sounded like a lawnmower starting up, and Rust was surprised that it had come from him.

He shouldn’t really be surprised about anything anymore. 

Ginger’s hand was right at the base of Rust’s spine. If he pressed… if he ever wanted to press, he could snap him in two.

If he ever found out the truth. 

But he never, ever would. Because Rust was an expert at even hiding it from himself. Locked up in a safe, in a cavern, in a safety deposit box with no key. 

He pressed, but not to hurt or snap – at least, that didn’t seem to be his aim right now. But he wasn’t letting Rust up, either. He was claiming him…

And hell if a little piece of Rust didn’t like that. To belong somewhere after wandering for so long…

“Ginger,” he whispered, surprised that he was even able to make words come out of his mouth. He’d gone months without speaking, sometimes. Unless he needed to, unless it was for the job and for the cover.

But sometimes you didn’t need to say a thing. 

It was so hot in this room, so hot that Rust was sure he was going to start sweating like mad, sweating enough that his skin would come off in Ginger’s hands and he would be left with a bloody, oozing skeleton. 

Or maybe Rust would just pop right out of his skin like a lizard.

He certainly felt like one right now as his tongue slithered out of his mouth, reaching for Ginger’s lips. Pulling him back in. He’d managed to turn himself around to face the other man but wasn’t exactly sure when it had happened. Things seemed to happen disconnected here, as Crash. The paint-by-numbers wasn’t quite filled in. 

Maybe he would just let himself drift away. Maybe that was what Heaven was like, if there was such a thing – floating away from it all and ending up in a there-not-there type of place, being thin enough to fit through a wall.

“You ready, bro?”

He heard the words as if waking, as if not sure if he had dreamed them up or heard them truly, and Rust, or Crash, or whoever he was now – and maybe he was a cloud or a slip of paper or a flick of dust – nodded because he could not find the words to speak. 

And then Ginger was inside him, deep inside, burrowing and maybe it was slick but inside it was nothing but bone dry.

He could hear his heart beating in his chest and in his ears, building like a migraine.

And yet it was good, too. There was a warmth there, the kind he’d get when he would hold his hand against a hot leather seat just to feel how his skin stuck, how he’d need to peel it off.

Some things liked to stick. 

Ginger was biting his skin, was tearing at it. Maybe he would mark him, but maybe not – Crash thought that sometimes, Ginger liked him pretty. Not that Crash was pretty, not really – not in the way he’d think of the word.

What did words mean, anyway?

Ginger. He didn’t even know his real name, but it certainly wasn’t that. Spicy and hot and burning, though, it fit him.

And Crash was a disaster who burnt up everything in his path.

Rust never sleeps, he thought, but he shut that down because Rust was dead or at least sleeping, proving the quote wrong. 

He must have zoned out at the end, because when he came to he was crumpled in a pile, arms around Ginger and feeling tears seem into his eyes from somewhere else.

But where? Maybe rain was seeping in, making everything damn.

Making everything rust, maybe.


End file.
